Not counted towards your tag license limit.
The CalAmp diagnostic driver type enables users to read statistics from any given Integra-TR, Integra-H, Viper SC or Phantom II radio.
Driver Errors: To learn more about the cause of an error condition, refer to the Driver Summary Report and the Driver Error Report, both of which are available in the Reports page. The Show Stats button will also provide current and last error messages: Show Statistics Button Widget
Reference Notes:
This driver was known as the Dataradio Diagnostic driver in earlier versions of VTScada.
These tags are required only in applications where you wish to gather data about a CalAmp unit.
For example, a common arrangement might be a CalAmp unit connected to your PC, and a secondary CalAmp unit connected to an RTU or PLC at a remote location. to collect data from the RTU or PLC, your VTScada application can use an appropriate communication driver tag such as Allen-Bradley or Modicon. If you wish to gather data about either CalAmp units in such a scenario (e.g. the temperature of the CalAmp unit), your application will require a CalAmp diagnostic driver tag.
In the unusual event that you have multiple devices attempting to use the same channel at the same time across multiple ports, you might consider adding Comm Link Sequencer Tags to serialize requests.
Comm Link Sequencer Tags - Serialize requests for the same communication channel across ports.
CalAmp Diagnostic Driver properties ID tab
The ID tab of every tag includes the same common elements: Name, Area, Description, and Help ID.
Name:
Uniquely identifies each tag in the application. If the tag is a child of another, the parent names will be displayed in a separate area before the name field.
You may right-click on the tag's name to add or remove a conditional start expression.
Area
The area field is used to group similar tags together. By defining an area, you make it possible to:
- Filter for particular tag groups when searching in the tag browser
- Link dial-out alarm rosters to Alarm tags having a particular area
- Limit the number of tags loaded upon startup.
- Filter the alarm display to show only certain areas.
- Filter tag selection by area when building reports
When working with Parent-Child tag structures, the area property of all child tags will automatically match the configured area of a parent. Naturally, you can change any tag's area as required. In the case of a child tag, the field background will turn yellow to indicate that you have applied an override. (Orange in the case of user-defined types. Refer to Configuration Field Colors)
To use the area field effectively, you might consider setting the same Area for each I/O driver and its related I/O tags to group all the tags representing the equipment processes installed at each I/O device. You might also consider naming the Area property for the physical location of the tag (i.e. a station or name of a landmark near the location of the I/O device). For serial port or Roster tags, you might configure the Area property according to the purpose of each tag, such as System or Communications.
You may define as many areas as you wish and you may leave the area blank for some tags (note that for Modem tags that are to be used with the Alarm Notification System, it is actually required that the area field be left blank).
To define a new area, type the name in the field. It will immediately be added. To use an existing area, use the drop-down list feature. Re-typing an existing area name is not recommended since a typo or misspelling will result in a second area being created.
There is no tool to remove an area name from VTScada since such a tool is unnecessary. An area definition will exist as long as any tag uses it and will stop existing when no tag uses it (following the next re-start).
Description
Tag names tend to be brief. The description field provides a way to give each tag a human-friendly note describing its purpose. While not mandatory, the description is highly recommended.
Tag descriptions are displayed in the tag browser, in the list of tags to be selected for a report and also on-screen when the operator holds the pointer over the tag’s widget. For installations that use the Alarm Notification System, the description will be spoken when identifying the tag that caused the alarm.
The description field will store up to 65,500 characters, but this will exceed the practical limits of what can be displayed on-screen.
This note is relevant only to those with a multilingual user interface:
When editing any textual parameter (description, area, engineering units...) always work in the phrase editor. Any changes made directly to the textual parameter will result in a new phrase being created rather than the existing phrase being changed.
In a unilingual application this makes no difference, but in a multilingual application it is regarded as poor practice.
Help Search Key
Used only by those who have created their own CHM-format context sensitive help files to accompany their application.
Server List
Select (or create) a named server list.
CalAmp Diagnostic Driver properties Type tab
The Type tab of the CalAmp diagnostic driver tag properties folder is used to select the type of CalAmp unit that this tag is to represent. The choices, as shown include:
- Integra-TR
- Integra-H
- Viper SC
- Phantom II
CalAmp Diagnostic Driver properties Serial tab
The Serial tab of the CalAmp diagnostic driver tag properties folder is used to select the port to which the CalAmp unit associated with this tag is connected.
The port on the Data Radio unit, from which VTScada collects diagnostic information, is a true RS-232 serial port. To connect to this port with VTScada, you can use one of several different hardware solutions:
- Serial port cable connected directly.
For this case, configure and select a Serial Port tag.
- Stand alone serial modem connected to the serial port on the radio.
VTScada has its own modem that is used to dial up the modem connected to the radio. For this option, configure and select a serial port that is using a modem.
- Ethernet terminal server connected to the serial port on the radio.
VTScada is connected to the same network as the terminal server and can connect to it with either a TCP/IP or UDP/IP port tag
- RJ-45 Ethernet port on the radio (Viper SC and Phantom II radios only).
Any VTScada port tag may be used, but it must match the hardware connection to the radio.
CalAmp Diagnostic Driver Tag Widgets
The following widgets are available to display information about your application’s CalAmp diagnostic driver tags:
